


A Mother's Bitter Tears

by hrhrionastar



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Episode: s02e17 Vengeance, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhat inspired by the discussion at peoplespalace. Immediately post-<i>Vengeance</i>, Zedd has forgiven Panis Rahl, but there's someone who hasn't forgiven <i>him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mother's Bitter Tears

"Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander."

Zedd blinked and sat up, glancing quickly around at his sleeping companions. Cara was on watch, but she was facing out, away from him. Richard and Kahlan curled together, not quite touching but reaching for one another even in sleep.

The scene should have been peaceful enough.

The woman who stood before Zedd glowed slightly, the way Kahlan's mother had when Zedd had brought her back to break the Maternity Spell.

She even looked vaguely like Kahlan—long dark hair swept back from her brow and confined in a complex knot at the back of her neck, cool gray eyes and an air of tragedy to match the light glimmering through her skin.

"What did you do to my son?" the woman demanded, hands going to her hips.

Zedd pulled himself to his feet, towering over her—she was so young, hardly much older than Richard and Kahlan. He thought he had forgotten more.

Nila Rahl—wife to Panis and mother to Darken Rahl, that monster Zedd had let be born.

His lips twisted into a bitter grimace. "You claim him, then?"

"Someone must," Nila asserted. "He is _mine_ —blood of my blood and child of my body. If he brought ruin and despair upon you all, I would love him still."

Darken Rahl _had_ brought ruin and despair upon them all, just as the prophecy had foretold. But it never would have happened if Zedd had refused Panis his help.

And then Richard would never have been born…if Darken Rahl was all that was evil in the world, Richard was surely all that was good.

"You never even knew him," Zedd dismissed Nila's words as best he might. "You died a few months after he was born—complications of the childbirth, I heard."

He frowned, remembering that time. He had been so hurt—Panis had killed his father.

Vengeance wasn't possible then—the Rahls were always too well-guarded, look how difficult it had been for Richard to find and kill Darken Rahl as the prophecy had foretold—but it had been possible, for that scant few days when Panis had traveled with them and helped Richard find the Scroll of Valdaire, only to lose it again to a Sister of the Dark.

Zedd had forgiven Panis, but he wasn't sure he could ever forgive himself.

"Yes," Nila agreed smoothly. Zedd looked down at her. He'd never taken much notice of her when she was alive—Panis's perfect painted doll of a queen.

He would never have betrayed his friend by seducing Panis's wife, and Lady Nila had quickly faded to the background of his attention, as compared to all the beautiful and available ladies at court.

"I died," Nila said. "You could have saved me." She spoke as though it were merely a point of academic interest.

But then she leaned forward, catching at Zedd's sleeve—he remembered she was a spirit and should not be able to touch him. "You could have saved my _baby,_ " she hissed. "Instead you did _nothing_ while Panis left him to die. You abandoned Darken when he needed you most, to go study your scrolls and pretend you'd never even _heard_ the name Rahl until you fled to guide his little brother's footsteps toward murdering him!"

Zedd pulled away from her grasp, backing up until he felt tree bark press into his spine. "I had to," he defended himself. "The prophecy—"

"Prophecy be damned!" Nila Rahl shouted.

Zedd looked around, but Richard and Kahlan still slept, and Cara hadn't moved.

"Isn't that what you said, about the smiling boy with dirt under his nails you sent to kill my son?" Nila went on, sugary sweet now.

Zedd remembered the occasion: Kahlan screaming at him that she needed a _Seeker_ , not a boy who knew how to pick worms.

There were days when Zedd blamed himself for dragging Richard out of Westland, where his life had been simple and happy and not filled with banelings and blood and Rahls.

Westland, and the Cyphers, had taught Richard how to love and how to live—more important lessons than any Wizard's rules.

"You promised you would teach him," Nila whispered. She was crying now, round silent tears that slid smoothly down her cheeks. "It didn't take me long to know what kind of man I'd married," she said, "but you—you were the one I trusted. If you'd stayed, you could have taught Darken, protected him, loved him—"

"Never," Zedd denied quickly. Love Darken Rahl? No sane person could, after everything he'd done.

Nila slapped him.

It stung only a little, although Zedd's pride was wounded.

He caught her wrist, in no mood to remember that he shouldn't be able to touch her at all. "Your son is a monster," he said flatly. "My only regret is that I helped Panis conceive him by unnatural means. If I hadn't done that, the world wouldn't be in peril now because of Darken Rahl's evil."

"Because of Richard Rahl's folly," Nila countered. "Or do you take responsibility for that, too? I am supposed to believe that my son and countless other souls suffer eternal torment because you made one careless mistake to help a friend? Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, you are a fool."

She twisted out of his grasp and pinned him to the tree trunk with one hand at his neck, eerily like a Confessor. "You brought Darken into this world as surely as I did," she said softly. "And you failed him. You and Panis and Carracticus together—three grown idiots and one infant, and suddenly _my son_ is to blame for your mess. He will outsmart you all—my brave boy."

Nila smiled proudly.

Zedd stared at her in horror and foreboding. Her promise that Darken Rahl would outsmart his father, Panis, and himself seemed worryingly possible.

"I cursed you with my last breath, you know," Nila said, quite conversationally.

Abruptly, Zedd woke up.

The scene was unchanged, except that he was still lying in his bedroll and Nila appeared to be gone, thank the Creator.

Zedd focused on Cara's stern profile and breathed slowly and evenly, concentrating in an effort to be rid of the last lingering effects of his dream.

Nila Rahl. He hadn't thought of her in years.

Zedd remembered hearing the announcement of her death—remembered her pregnant, drinking water at one of Panis's many feasts and gently massaging her swollen belly with one bejeweled hand.

She used to hum, when she thought no one was listening.

Harmless as a kitten, and nearly as uninteresting, Zedd had thought then.

And Darken Rahl was her son.

She was wrong—there was nothing Zedd could have done to avert the prophecy. To save all the people Darken Rahl had hurt or killed.

Except never to have helped Panis conceive him in the first place.

That guilt Zedd accepted willingly enough—Richard, and Jennsen, were surely a worthy compensation for what the world had suffered because of Darken Rahl.

But that he could have saved Nila's life and taught her son the meaning of justice and sacrifice and love—no. Zedd refused to believe it had been possible, ever, to reclaim Darken Rahl's soul from the Keeper.

He shut his eyes again resolutely.

 _I cursed you with my last breath…_

Wizards didn't believe in superstitious nonsense like deathbed curses. Nila had never had enough power to bind such a spell to Zedd's blood, not even with a mother's bitter tears.

And if that had been truly her spirit and not just a dream—well, she was dead. As powerless as her son.

In light of Darken Rahl's status as the Keeper's right hand, Zedd did not find this as reassuring as it might have been.


End file.
